Ex-USMNT boss Arena claims Pulisic could ‘potentially’ surpass Donovan

Pulisic is coming off of a career-best season, but Arena wants to see more consistency

Bruce Arena isn’t quite ready to declare Christian Pulisic the best player in the U.S. men’s national team’s history…but it sounds like he’s close.

Arena, speaking on an episode of CBS Sports’ “Kickin’ It,” said that the AC Milan star is “potentially” going to surpass Landon Donovan, who along with Clint Dempsey is generally the standard-bearer when it comes to discussions of the best USMNT player in program history.

“Christian, I think is potentially a better player than Landon,” said Arena when asked to evaluate the two. “He isn’t yet, but potentially he should be. He’s shown it now in Italy.”

Pulisic just completed a career-best campaign in which he put up 15 goals and 11 assists for AC Milan in his first season in Italy. EA Sports FC and Opta both named Pulisic to their Serie A teams of the season.

Host Kate Abdo asked Arena what he needs to see from Pulisic to make a more clear declaration.

“He has put some years together of quality,” said Arena, possibly alluding to Pulisic’s struggle to get consistent playing time at Chelsea. “He’s getting there. No question about that.”

Arena is one of two coaches who have had both Pulisic and Donovan on their rosters, along with Jürgen Klinsmann. Donovan spent the bulk of his USMNT career under Arena’s stewardship, before a rockier period that saw the California native controversially dropped for the 2014 World Cup.

Pulisic, meanwhile, made his national team debut under Klinsmann in 2016, and remained a regular for Arena in the latter stages of an ultimately doomed qualifying campaign for the 2018 World Cup.

Watch Arena compare Pulisic and Donovan

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